Map of the Day: Where Slavery Still Thrives

Today’s map comes via the Global Slavery Index, which tracks modern day slavery. Globally, the report says there are 29.8 million people entrenched in slavery around the world. This includes the victims of human trafficking forced labor and other forms of effective enslavement.

The index defines slavery as “one person depriving another people of their freedom: their freedom to leave one job for another, their freedom to leave one workplace for another, their freedom to control their own body.” In aggregate terms, the worst countries are China and India, which is not suprising given their massive populations. But in terms of proportions, Mauritania is the worst. In all, 38 of the 50 countries where modern slavery is worst are in Africa.

Mauritania has the poorest record, with some 150,000 people in a population of 3.8 million held captive, many of whom inherited their status from their parents. Other African countries with particularly high prevalence of slavery are located in West Africa: Benin, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Gabon and Senegal.

Darker the red, the worse the incidence of slavery:

As with nearly every other social indicator, the Scandinavian countries rank the highest, with Finland earning the top score. The USA is 16 slots lower. Check out the index to see where your country ranks.